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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29914263">Rotwood's Paradox</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynse/pseuds/Lynse'>Lynse</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>American Dragon: Jake Long</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, One Shot, Reluctant Hero, at least for now, technically kidnapping but for a good cause</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 20:14:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,084</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29914263</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynse/pseuds/Lynse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rotwood isn’t supposed to be the one doing the saving. If anything, that's a dragon’s job. Unfortunately, Mr. Long is the one who needs saving.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rotwood's Paradox</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnimationAdventures/gifts">AnimationAdventures</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the lovely AnimationAdventures, who incidentally came up for the title for this fic. This is an expansion of <a href="https://ladylynse.tumblr.com/post/185440074826/good-evening-lady-l-i-hope-your-friday-was-a">this three sentence fic prompt</a>: Rotwood is pleased that Jake fits in a duffel bag.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rotwood, like any true student of mythobiology, knew that iron disrupted magic.</p>
<p>Truthfully, he hadn’t expected the old ‘cast iron frying pan to the head’ trick to work on a dragon, let alone one not entirely within its right mind. Desperate times had called for desperate measures, however, and it had been faster to get to the home ec room than the shop class. He had also been lucky so far, incredibly so. His luck typically did not hold for this long. In ordinary circumstances, he’d have managed to retrieve the frying pan but not effectively put it to use.</p>
<p>This time, however, it had worked as well as he’d imagined. Rotwood was left holding the dented frying pan—dented!—and standing over the (thankfully now human) body of young Mr. Long, which was sprawled on the floor of the gymnasium.</p>
<p>Rotwood dragged the boy to the changing room where he’d hidden the duffel bag in an open locker earlier, where it had blended in well with all the other forgotten bags and socks and shoes that had yet to make their way into the lost-and-found box. His having the bag on hand had been a stroke of luck, too, since he’d brought in some equipment last week. He liked using it to carry oddly shaped gadgetry to and from work undetected, and it had been in his office. No one at this school asked too many questions, thankfully, which was no doubt how his predecessor had been principal for so long.</p>
<p>Still, a human body, even that of a teenaged boy yet to hit his growth spurt, was rather unwieldly. To put it mildly. Rotwood grunted as he managed to wrangle Jake into position, slipping him inside one limb at a time. He hadn’t expected the boy to fit, but he did—barely—and the bag even zipped shut. Small mercies.</p>
<p>A frying pan would be a tad more out of place in a locker than the duffel bag had been, so Rotwood climbed onto the bench and reached up to the ceiling. The tiles shifted under his touch, so he slid the frying pan up there until he could come back for it. It was far from the best of hiding spots—he wasn’t entirely sure those crossbeams weren’t bulging under the weight, since they had always seemed so flimsy to him—but it would do until he could get this mess sorted out.</p>
<p>Funny, how he was doing the dragon’s job.</p>
<p>Rotwood spared the ceiling one last dubious glance before dropping back to the floor and testing the weight of the bag. Gritting his teeth, he hefted the bag over his shoulder, nearly staggering under its weight. Pins and needles started all down his right arm almost immediately, the strap of the bag digging into his shoulder despite the padding. He’d hauled heavy equipment around, but it was hardly comparable. Taking one last deep breath to steel himself, he left the changing room behind and headed for the relative safety of his office to prepare for the trip. He wouldn’t need much, thankfully. Getting Jake out of here was the priority. Rotwood just didn’t plan to leave behind any evidence that might suggest—</p>
<p>“Trying to steal my glory, Hans?”</p>
<p>Rotwood froze. He’d been diligently checking before rounding each corner, but he was making slow progress and already breathing heavily from the strain. Dragons seemed to weigh as much in human form as they did in dragon form, and his arms and shoulders ached. He’d been looking forward to getting to his office and finally dropping his load, but it seemed his luck had decided now was a good time to turn on him.</p>
<p>Brock and the sorcerer with whom he was working certainly wouldn’t care one whit about the pain Rotwood was enduring, particularly when the American Dragon was their primary target.</p>
<p>That knowledge was perhaps why Rotwood couldn’t stop the nervous laugh from bubbling up in his throat, and he pasted a smile on his face as he pivoted to face his old rival. “Me? Oh, no, no, no, I could never, not when you could still be teaching me so much.”</p>
<p>“So you are, what, planning to go camping?” asked Brock as he strode closer, stopping mere feet from Rotwood. If Jake woke, if he <em>moved</em>…. “You never struck me as the type.”</p>
<p>“Maybe I’m just expanding my interests,” hedged Rotwood, and Brock laughed.</p>
<p>“You were only ever willing to go camping to learn about the magical creatures we could trap in the wild. You were much happier to stick in an urban environment. Tell me, then: which creature caught your interest and brought about this sudden change of heart?”</p>
<p>Rotwood wished Brock didn’t know him so well. “If you must know, I am bringing in equipment to see if there is any truth to your wild claims about a dragon attending my school.” It was not wholly a lie; he had done just that and could produce equipment similar to what Brock would expect to see, given the opportunity to just go inside his office. He had been so close, mere yards away….</p>
<p>“Oh? And have you had any luck?”</p>
<p>Rotwood’s arm was numb now. “I still need to set everything up.”</p>
<p>“I could help.” Some twist of his features must have betrayed him, for Brock smirked. “You know why I am here. You are not as much the fool as the dragon has made you seem. And you would know even better than I if any of your students have been…affected.”</p>
<p>“You wish to propose a truce?”</p>
<p>“We are not truly working against each other, now are we?”</p>
<p>Rotwood would hope that his sweating wasn’t too noticeable, but this was Brock. That was a faint hope at best.</p>
<p>“We should be allies, should we not?”</p>
<p>They had been rivals for too many years to ever dream of an alliance. There was enough truth in that that Brock would know it. “We have the same goal,” Rotwood allowed, “but you have already made an alliance, no? You are correct. I have seen hints of your work here. You do not wish me to steal your glory, but you also do not wish me to share your glory. To you I am naught but a mere stepping stone. And you hope that if I find something now, you will have full claim to it.” Rotwood bared his teeth in something that even Brock wouldn’t mistake for a smile. “Any truths you uncovered with my help would be tainted.”</p>
<p>“You speak as if you do not fully intend to do the same. Then again, you have always been shameless.”</p>
<p>His shoulder was killing him. He would not be able to hold this bag for much longer. He had to get rid of Brock, even if it was in a reckless way that meant he’d be under heavier scrutiny later. It would not be an easy task; Brock knew his usual exit strategies, and he’d see through anything Rotwood tried to improvise. And if that sorcerer came by and picked up on Brock’s obvious suspicion of him, he’d never get Jake out of here.</p>
<p>Still, it did not matter if Brock realized that Rotwood was trying to get rid of him; it mattered that he did not realize the true reason why. “Let us have a little competition. We are both looking for proof of dragons, and I believe the best mythobiologist will find it tonight.”</p>
<p>Brock’s grin was feral. “Oh, I will,” he said, “and when you do not, you will resign your position here as principal.”</p>
<p>He hated bets. He hated that he was putting his career on the line for Jake Long, who wouldn’t give him so much as a scale to study in return. He hated that he had practically opened the door and invited Brock in and allowed him to corner him this way. “Yes, but that will not happen. Instead, you will be the one who is leaving to study in another state. I hear there was a sighting of the Jersey Devil recently.”</p>
<p>“I heard that was a bear,” Brock said dryly, but it was an agreement. It was an agreement to a deal he was certain he would win, as he rightly assumed the American Dragon was already under that sorcerer’s spell. How he’d convinced anyone to work with him was beyond Rotwood, but then Brock did know how to get what he wanted. “Very well. I assume, since we are competing, you do not wish to have my help setting up your equipment?”</p>
<p>His eyes lingered too long on the duffel bag. Rotwood pointedly coughed to draw his attention away and said, “We must keep some trade secrets from each other, yes?” Hopefully, Brock would assume Rotwood was simply wary of sabotage, as he would have been, if he had had equipment in the bag and not the particular magical creature Brock was seeking.</p>
<p>“Of course.” Brock’s smile was thin, but while his eyes flicked to the bag once more, he moved on.</p>
<p>Rotwood forced himself to stand there until Brock was out of sight before fumbling for his office key and unlocking the door. He dumped Jake rather unceremoniously on the floor—dragons were resilient—and locked the door behind him, even though he didn’t intend to stay for very long. As Rotwood hadn’t forbidden the use of outside resources—sorcery included—Brock could be on his way to the sorcerer right now. A scrying spell might not do him any good if he didn’t know for certain that Jake was the American Dragon, but it would work perfectly well when it came to spying on Rotwood himself.</p>
<p>The first order of business was to bind and gag Jake before he woke up in case the sorcerer’s spell was still in effect or had taken hold again. Rotwood wasn’t willing to risk carrying around an unbound but ensorcelled dragon.</p>
<p>Binding Jake didn’t take very long; he’d been practicing the like for years, even if he’d rarely had the opportunity to use it on magical creatures. That was why he had the necessary supplies in his desk; it was always best to be prepared. Granted, he wasn’t sure if the, ah, treatments for said supplies—duct tape, rope, zip ties, strips of cloth—that had been recommended in his books to enhance their effectiveness when used against magical creatures were accurate, as not everything had been in the past. Still, when he met with Mrs. Long—and he dearly hoped this meeting went better than the last one, though it could hardly go worse—she would be able to take care of any other necessary precautions.</p>
<p>Next, because of what he’d told Brock, Rotwood had to spend precious time to finish double checking and activating the surveillance system he’d previously set up in the hopes of catching Jake’s true nature on film. Even though he didn’t like the idea of wasting his chance now and ruining the surprise, he’d rather have to come up with another idea than lose Jake to Brock altogether. One of the cameras did catch Brock outside the home economics room—had Rotwood locked that door behind him?—but there was no sign of his accomplice.</p>
<p>Rotwood wasn’t foolish enough to think said accomplice wasn’t around, though.</p>
<p>He offloaded any potentially relevant computer files to a flash drive (soon slipped into his inside breast pocket for safe keeping) and deleted them off his computer. Not that there was much—he tried not to keep much on his work computer, if only so Jake wouldn’t feel the need to periodically destroy it—but he didn’t want to give Brock anything that could potentially help him, now or in the future.</p>
<p>How he’d managed to worm his way into a substitute position was beyond Rotwood, as he’d certainly never agreed to anything, and he wouldn’t have thought the schoolboard would, either, after the last debacle. Then again, with Brock’s new alliance, he wasn’t restricted to the usual channels or methods of persuasion. It made Rotwood wonder just what he’d promised that sorcerer. If he hadn’t noticed the effects of the spell on Jake, hadn’t <em>recognized</em> them….</p>
<p>No matter. He had, and that was the important thing.</p>
<p>“Come on, Mr. Long,” Rotwood murmured as he lifted the bag—over his left shoulder this time, as his right twinged at the very thought. “It’s time I got you out of here.”</p>
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